I know, I am a broken record. I regret nothing!

I will say that after multiple nights of going to bed early, including last night when I managed to get to sleep at 8:30pm, this morning I found it marginally easier to drag my carcass out of bed and face the day. I was just as tired for the rest of the day, but I was filled with less loathing at the thought of getting up and doing things upon waking, and I didn't hit the snooze button at all, which may honestly be a minor miracle.

It's 8:30 now, so I obviously won't be getting to bed quite as early tonight, but I also don't need to get up as early tomorrow since I don't have to be at work at 7:30am. I am still planning on getting up early-ish tomorrow because I want to try making yoghurt in my Instant Pot, and it's a lengthy process. Luckily I don't have to be around for most of that process, but I do have to be around at the beginning to get things going, and I want to make sure that I don't have to stay up late to put said yoghurt away once it's done, supposing it's edible.

The rest of my plans for tomorrow remain unchanged. Pick up my new red wriggler friends, go see my doctor to request a blood test, and then come home and dive into garden things.

KK is working from home tomorrow, so I'm going to have to get over all the weird feelings I have about Doing Things(TM) when she's around. Somehow having her home makes me feel incredibly awkward about trying to do things like clean the house or organize things or even do a bunch of cooking.

Also! There is a full blood moon eclipse tonight! It's very exciting. Unfortunately it will be at its peak at 2:26 tomorrow morning, but since we won't have another full eclipse until 2029 I have set an alarm so I can go take a look. I don't know if I will be able to drag myself out of bed at that hour, but I will at least give myself the opportunity. I got to watch the solar eclipse last year, which was super cool, and I'd like to watch the lunar eclipse as well.

Okay, time for bed so the odds will be more in favour of my not missing the eclipse. Catch you on the flip side!

 When LiveJournal introduced tags, I did NOT understand what they were about or what they were for, and I just kind of... tagged everything every which way. So now I have well over 1,100 tags, and they are useless to me. So yesterday I began the slow and very annoying process of whittling them down to a manageable number. I'd like to be able to use them for reference, after all.

I'm not actually having an existential crisis. Nor a mid-life crisis, for that matter. If anything, I am surer now than I ever have been that I still want the same thing I've always wanted, and just never managed to make an executable plan for it.

I haven't posted about those things here in years, probably. People who've been my LJ friends from close to the beginning will know this, but all of the lovely but more recent friends probably aren't aware that, for a very long time--practically since I was a child--I've wanted to have my own small farm in the country. That dream has taken on a few different forms over the years as I grew more informed about what such a thing would entail. I never wanted a large farm, or one that would sustain me economically, but even then there are challenges involved, and these are only the ones I am learning about via my reading, rather than through direct experience.

Essentially what I want to do is remove myself somewhat from the rat race. I'm not in the same rat race as most people. I don't work in a corporate environment, and I haven't been seduced by workaholism (yes, I know my schedule kind of puts the lie to that statement, shut up ;) ), but it nonetheless remains that I am working at a job that has not been making me happy for quite some time now. Well, "unhappy" is not quite the right word--it's more like "unfulfilled."

Even though I was born and bred a city girl, I've always loved the country. I love being out in nature, or just being near it. I love being able to look out my window and see nothing but trees or fields or water, and to be able to look up at the night sky and see the stars scattered there. My dream has always been to live somewhere that this would be possible every day.

I have had the idea for about 12 or 13 years to try to live a more self-sustaining lifestyle. I want to live on a small hobby farm, raise some animals, and live more sustainably and independently than I do now. I have had a bit of success growing vegetables in the past, so the goal is to grow and raise as much as my own food as possible. So, vegetables, maybe grains if there's enough land for it, and some livestock (chickens, then rabbits, and eventually goats). I have very long-term plans for going partially off the grid, i.e. mostly producing my own electricity (solar panels and/or a small wind turbine), and producing most of my own household necessities. Not all of this right off the bat, of course. I view it more as a series of ongoing projects that will likely keep me busy until the day I die. Right now I'm slowly working on the habit of cooking from scratch, which I'd let fall by the wayside over the past couple of years.

Obviously, I haven't accomplished that yet. I was on my way there when I got sidetracked by a relationship that turned out very poorly, and I've spent the past five years recovering from that (we just passed the "anniversary" of the end of that time, which is overall better not spoken of). I'm still not 100%, financially speaking, but I am closer to my goal than I've ever been. In fact, I am so close that it is extremely tempting to jump the gun and put in an offer on a likely looking property. It's taking a lot of willpower on my part not to just dive into an endeavour I can't *quite* afford yet, just because I am really excited at the prospect of finally doing what I've always wanted to do. I have friends who have just bought a beautiful farm, and I am low-key pretty envious, because it's gorgeous and well beyond anything I'd be able to afford on just my income, but I'm also excited to see what I will be able to do with a smaller allotment, too. A little can go a very long way, if you plan carefully, and if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I probably wouldn't be able to manage a really large property all on my own anyway.

I'd been feeling a little guilty in the past few years, because it felt like I'd really let myself lose sight of what was really important to me in life. I forgot that I wanted to slow down, to embrace a quieter pace of life. I don't want to disconnect from the digital world entirely, but I need to take a few steps back and find a balance between all the things I love about online life (my online friends, video games, streaming, etc.) and my need to also be outside and in nature. My life has been very out of balance on that score for years and years.

I won't be in a position to buy a place to live for at least another six months. Ideally I should wait eight or nine months, to be sure I have enough financial wriggle room for unexpected things. I still have to pay all my normal expenses (rent, utilities, pet food, what have you), try to get my personal debt down (*sigh*), and also pay for my university tuition, which is increasing now that I'll be pursuing a Master's (*further sigh*). I have no real reason to complain, I am much better off than most people, but life is expensive, yo. That's actually something I'm trying to fix: I want to spend less money. People who've known me for a long time will know that I am not super good at money in the long term. I can do short term and often manage medium term, but long term? No sirree Bob, not I. So the goal is to learn to simplify, and reduce what I consume (thus reducing what I spend). It's all really in the name of living more intentionally, rather than coasting along with the current, bobbing around wherever the river decides to take me. 

Depending on where I move, too, I might try to get some Quaker activity going over there, too. Driving to Ottawa for Meeting every Sunday might be a bit challenging, but I would love to create an intentional little community right where I want to put down roots.I still haven't quite given up on the idea of children, and if/when I get away from shift work (please, God), I want to look into fostering kids, especially teenagers. A few years ago, if you'd asked me, I would have said I'd never be able to handle troubled teenagers, but now I feel more confident, and I think it could end up being a really good thing in the long run. All kids deserve a safe space to land when their lives are falling apart.

What does all this mean? I suppose, for now, it means that I am going to make an effort to chronicle and document my efforts here, starting small. First I'm going to focus on cooking for myself, and significantly de-cluttering and downsizing the house, in anticipation of moving next year. I don't plan on becoming a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination, but even I know I have way too much stuff, and I want to move into a house with a smaller footprint, which will hopefully help me manage my waste production and allow me to focus more on the outdoors than the indoors. After that, we shall see.

I'm working one more night shift tonight (after this one, which will be over in about three hours), as my manager asked me to come in on overtime for Canada Day. I'm not really needed, but they're clearly trying to impress someone and I could use the money. Once I've had a chance to recover from working six days and 72 hours in a row, I'm going to continue going through my impressively huge collection of paperwork and try to get rid of, optimistically, about 90% of it. I estimate that will take me several more days--conservatively around five or six, I should say. Once that's done, I will move onto books, which, interestingly, should be easier, because I already have a good idea of which books I will part with. The konmari category after that is komono, or "everything else," and that is going to be a huge undertaking. I assume it will take me the rest of the summer, if not longer, to get through it all. Still, I think it will make a huge difference in my life, getting rid of so much of the stuff that I've been carting around this whole time.

I don't really have a pithy conclusion for this post. These are just my thoughts at 3am on a Monday, and perhaps I will have more coherent thoughts later on, after I've slept.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

As I mentioned before, I got inspired by toughlovemuse to try out bullet journaling. I had tried it back in April or May, if memory serves, but I didn't stick with it for more than a few days at best. Having seen her beautiful notebook and nifty pens and washi tape, I decided to give it another go. It's only been a few days, but I'm having a lot more fun with it this time, now that I know that I can experiment with different layouts and fun things like that.

I'm going to try to use it to track new (good) habits and old (bad) habits, and see if I can't become more organised and productive in the future. I mean, I've been doing this dance for as long as I've lived on my own, so honestly it probably won't work. At least it'll be fun while I'm doing it. It's allowing me to indulge in some more artistic pursuits, even though I have basically no artistic talent. I've looked up a bunch of different ideas online, and am using the plethora of users and communities that have sprung up around this phenomenon for inspiration. I've got several pages done already, and managed to mess up my first weekly layout (my weeks start on Sunday, but I was copying a layount and accidentally started the first week on Monday), but at least it should be relatively easy to alter it later on. Here's hoping it sticks, but if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world.

( Bullet Journal pictures behind the cut )

This is again, not the promised pet post. I may try to write that one on the plane. My first flight boards in about 20 minutes. I've spent the past couple of hours just sitting here at the airport in Moncton, not doing much of anything except futz around with Twitter. I should have spent it writing, or doing something useful with my time, but my brain just wouldn't cooperate.

It doesn't help that my neck and shoulder still hurt like the very devil, which is making even sitting rather uncomfortable. Luckily the Robaxacet is helping, making it uncomfortable rather than excruciating, and in just a moment I will break out the Aleve in order to get me through the next two flights and the rather long layover in Montreal.

In the meantime, I figure I'll start making a to-do list of everything I need to get done in the four and a half days I'll have at home before I go back to work.

• Stop by the office early Sunday morning to scan and send in the form to claim my expenses.


• Get a couple of new articles of summer clothing for work, mostly tops. I learned this week that my summer wardrobe has passed from being "gently used" to looking shabby enough that it won't pass muster for work. *sigh*


• Drive back to Montreal


• Call Réno Dépot about the fence installation. I am going to give them an earful about how rude their subcontractor was with me over the phone.


• Chase down the guy who's supposed to install the floor, since he's been AWOL for about 10 days now just on giving me an estimate for the job. I am not impressed.


• Check on the basement to see if it still smells of cat pee, and act accordingly.


• Take the dog to the vet on Wednesday morning for his eye surgery.


• Go to U-Haul and buy boxes so I can start getting my own stuff packed.


• Start sorting through my things and getting rid of all the things I don't need.


• Start packing up my things, probably starting with the books and miscellaneous stuff in the basement.


• Find a place in Montreal/the West Island (or hell, even Ottawa) which takes or recycles old electronics. I have random gizmos that don't work anymore coming out my ears, but I feel bad just throwing them out, especially my old, defunct laptop.


• Call/text back my real estate agent so we can review where things stand on the house.


• Get one more paving slab for the back yard. pdaughter was good enough to put the slabs down during my absence, but I'm apparently missing one, which isn't a big deal.


• Do laundry. All the laundry. /o\


• Make a new budget for the summer/fall


• See my parents Wednesday evening


• Walk the dog every day (except for Wednesday) so he won't go stir-crazy.


• Go to luvenditti's birthday party on Tuesday! (Yay outings!)

I'm honestly a little worried that I'm going to crash and burn really hard once I get back. I simply don't have time for that, so I'm not sure what to do to stave that off. I've been going non-stop for 13 days now, 11 of which were 12-hour night shifts and 2 of which were (are) travel days. If I get back early enough tonight, I'm hoping a good night's sleep will help.

Okay. Four minutes until boarding. Here I go!

Not necessarily in that order. Come to think of it, when all the craziness has died down I may well do a Sergio Leone rewatch. It's been a while since I enjoyed a good Spaghetti Western. :)


( Nattering about the week that just went by and the week to come )

Work has scheduled extra training for me on Wednesday, which means yet another night of coming home much later to Montreal than I wanted or planned to. Woe.

I will simply have to try to make use of the "extra" time I'll have on Tuesday now. Maybe I can get the car registered in Ontario, if I time everything correctly. I might even be able to get some writing done, depending on how things go.

I'm not overly thrilled, though, because the timing on this week was going to be tight enough as it was. Now that I'm losing an extra day, my schedule is going to be crammed to capacity. Oh well, it's not like I need sleep or down time.

I'll try for a more coherent post later. Right now, there needs to be coffee in my immediate future. The blood levels in my caffeine stream are about to become critical. ;)

I know, I know, this is still not the long post on willpower and extended will that I have been threatening to write for a few days now. I promise it will get written, possibly this weekend, time permitting.

Instead, I managed to squeeze enough time out of my day to work out my "un-schedule," or rather what a day typically looks like in the life of Phnee. I'm hoping this will help me manage my time better, now that I know what needs to be done on a regular basis. I've had to split my days according to categories, since everything changes drastically from one week to the next. There are seven different ways my days can go: regular day shifts, the first night shift, regular night shifts, first day off, off days that fall on weekdays, off days that fall on weekends, and the last day off.

I will put it all behind a cut, but I think having it written down will be more useful than trying to keep it all in my head. I found last week that making an unschedule for the days on which I was commuting was especially useful to help keep me on track. I was able to make much better time than I usually do.

( Unschedule behind the cut )